


Chapter 18: Tetefu's Light | Interlude: Matters of Life and Death

by PaxDuane



Series: Alola Family -- Legends and All [12]
Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Anime), Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types
Genre: Angst and Humor, M/M, Olivia explains that Lychee is her childhood nickname, Olivia finds out, Riley has a bit of a breakdown, Shigeru finds out less, crying riley has no filter, her klutziness is her gap moe, in which I model Olivia off an anime yankee
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-02
Updated: 2019-11-02
Packaged: 2021-01-20 17:31:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21285488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PaxDuane/pseuds/PaxDuane
Summary: Riley calls Shigeru to admit he's seen legendary pokemon on his own, without Satoshi, since he entered Kalos. Things don't go great...Olivia is there to pick up the pieces and learns the secrets Riley and Satoshi have mostly kept to themselves.
Relationships: Gen | Riley/Ookido Shigeru | Gary Oak
Series: Alola Family -- Legends and All [12]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1517219
Comments: 3
Kudos: 42





	Chapter 18: Tetefu's Light | Interlude: Matters of Life and Death

Riley glances behind him into the room where Satoshi and Hau are still chatting. Each has one of the eggs on their lap and Riley can’t help but notice the tiny pulses of aura that Satoshi is feeding his. He shakes his head, a smile touching on his face as he heads down into the main part of the Pokemon Center to use one of the video callers.

There’s another in Rowan’s lab and, when he checks the time in Sinnoh, it should be around the time Shigeru goes on break. It rings twice before he picks up.

“You know, it wasn’t until I remembered the Alola number coding that I realized it was probably you. Or my brother, but let’s be real,” Shigeru says in lieu of greeting. He sounds bored, but as soon as he drags his older brother’s new parenting lifestyle he grins. “Missed you around here, Angel Face.”

Riley flushes, looking away from the screen. “Missed you too.”

“What’s up, it’s pretty late in Alola right?”

“Yeah, I’ll need to wrangle everyone to bed soon. But I wanted to talk to you first.”

“Ri, you haven’t had a face to face conversation with me since I left Alola. …I’ve honestly been kind of worried I did something to piss you off before we left.”

“You did give your customary goodbye,” Riley agrees, “I only mean to have you stew a bit. I guess I’ve left it a little longer because of…stuff.”

“Satoshi being legendary bait?” Shigeru comments and, oh yeah, that was the excuse Riley gave him over messenger.

“Kind of,” Riley admits, looking down at his lap, where his free hand is clenched painfully. “I kind of lied about that. Not entirely, because he’s had his moments, but uh. I mainly lied that he was part of the experiences that were bothering me.”

“Angel—what’s going on?” Shigeru asks.

Riley’s tongue-tied. He knows what Satoshi’s advice was, but can he really leave it like that? “Are the professor or anyone else around?”

He glances up just long enough to catch Shigeru’s look of surprise. “No, they’re on an expedition this week and I volunteered to stay behind and watch the lab. Riley, what happened?”

“I lied in Kalos,” Riley says, all out in one burst. “About what happened in how I got to Clemont’s gym.”

“Well, I mean, you didn’t explain at all which…I wasn’t go to ask about. I figured that whatever happened you’d talk to me about after you, like, processed it… Which I guess you kind of have? Ri—Babe look at me.”

Riley tears his eyes from his lap to the screen. Something wet rolls down his cheek. “I met Xerneas, Shigeru. And then recently I met one of the Island Kapu. Poni Island’s Kapu-Rehire. And I’m still trying to process everything, but I’ve been shutting you out. I think you’ve sent me, like, ten times more texts than I’ve even replied to. That’s less than when we were living in the same room at the lab.”

Shigeru is quiet for a bit before he says anything else. “I guess Satoshi’s rubbed off on you?” he offers, following it up with a lame laugh.

Riley’s hand clenches around the receiver. “I should go, now.”

Shigeru doesn’t say anything, not even “Smell ya later” as Riley presses the end call button.

He really hopes the sides of the kiosk are muffling his sobs as he curls in on himself. He doesn’t even have a minute to himself before the kiosk door is shoved open and he’s dragged bodily out of it, and out of the Center, by Olivia, who proceeds to sit him down by a tree, squat down like delinquent, and offer him a green packaged candy.

He rips the little package with shaking hands and pops the round, green ball in his mouth. It’s sweet with a tang of sour and he side-eyes the Kahuna.

“It’s lychee flavored,” Olivia explains, “When me and Ahilani and Guzma and Molayne were little, Ahi got a package from August. Lychee grows in parts of Kanto so the flavor’s pretty popular there. They all agreed it tasted like my personality. I think I beat them all up for that… Especially since they took to calling me Lychee for like a month.” Her eyes get a thousand yard stare at that, but she’s looking at the Pokemon Center.

Riley sniffs. “Did you hear me crying?”

“Well, yeah,” Olivia admits. “Sobbing isn’t quiet. But… I also heard what you said before you hung up. I wanted to talk to you about how Ahilani’s handling the two of you and so I followed you to the kiosk when I saw you come down. You didn’t shut the door all the way, so I overheard as I was waiting for you to come out. You…you really met two legendaries in the span of, what, two months?”

“Month and a half,” Riley admits. “And earlier Sat—Ash nailed Kapu-Tetefu with the bag of salted caramel peanuts you gave us, cause she was openly lusting after them and bothering us about them.”

Olivia puts a hand on his shoulder and, with a dead look, says, “I apologize for my guardian deity.”

Riley has a burst of slightly hysterical laughter. “You don’t have to apologize for ‘anake. If anything I should be apologizing for how her conduct reflects the rest of the family.”

They both catch up with what Riley says at the same time.

“Shit,” he curses, looking away.

“I’m sorry, did I hear you right?” Olivia asks. “’anake? The rest of the family?”

There’s no coming back from this. And Satoshi said Hala knew, and Hau was obviously chill with it despite Circumstances. “Kapu-Rehire and Xerneas are my mothers. I did not find this out until I was already coming to Alola to teach Ash about aura. Kapu-Rehire is is makuahine, Xerneas is mère. The other Kapu are my two ‘anakala and my ‘anake. I haven’t processed it all yet.” It all comes out in a semi-hysteric rush and Olivia takes so long, in his panicked opinion, that he starts crying again because _she_ _doesn’t believe him_.

Then Olivia shoves his crying, snotty face into her chest. “You poor baby, no wonder you’re so chill about everything! You’ve been so panicked about all of this you’ve cycled right back into calm until tonight.”

“I mean,” he sniffs, extracting his face from marshmallow hell, “I’ve talked about it with Ash and Hau. Ash has a lot of empathy and Hau has a lot of sympathy. We haven’t told anyone else! Though Hala knows about Ash.”

“Ash is a Kapu’s child too?” Olivia asks.

“We are cousins on so many levels,” Riley says. “He’s Kapu-Kokeku’s child.” He manages to keep with who under wraps, somehow.

“This explains…So much,” Olivia says, staring up at the sky. “But Ahilani doesn’t know?”

“It? Doesn’t? Affect him?” Riley says, confused. “It’s not like we’re getting dragged around on godly missions or anything, our parents are just trying to make up for lost time with some minor spoiling and actually being around sometimes. We have a group chat.”

Very carefully, Olivia puts her hand back on Riley’s shoulder. “If or when he finds out, please tell him you confided in me before him.”

_What kind of childhood friends are these people_, Riley wonders. Instead of asking, he just nods his agreement.

“Fantastic. Now, I suggest coming to me if you can’t get Hau, on these matters. Hala’s a little preoccupied with being an eccentric old man married to another eccentric old man. I’m not Poni’s Kahuna, but I know a little bit about Kapu-Rehire from my work with her before I became a Kahuna. I’m sure Hau’s explained about the Rotation.”

Riley can only nod.

“Okay, awesome. So, I’m going to take you back in the Center and you’re going to get some sleep. Got it, kiddo?” Olivia asks.

He nods again.

“You’re going to need your sleep. We’ll talk tomorrow while I send Ash off on his trial.”

“O…Okay.”

And they do just that.


End file.
